


Up all night to get Bucky

by nerakrose



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, M/M, Road Trip, Up all night to get Bucky, captain steve's log, everyone has epic beard games, it's a beautiful pun trust me, lighthearted crack and a teensy bit of angst, low budget bromance honeymoon, sam does emotional damage control, slightly spoilery for cap2, steve is a knob, that's exactly what this fic is, tiny places in europe, yes i really went there with the title
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-28
Updated: 2014-04-28
Packaged: 2018-01-21 04:26:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1537487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerakrose/pseuds/nerakrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Sam go after the Winter Soldier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Up all night to get Bucky

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated entirely to palavapeite and mrs_jack_turner. Thanks to palavapeite for betaing it for me as well. ♥

Steve and Sam faffed about in DC for a few days (Steve called it picking up leads, Sam said 'procrastination worse than a third year college student two days before the deadline and banged up on caffeine', which absolutely did not make sense and Steve argued the point vehemently until Sam gave up and, so. Faffing). Anyway, they _faffed_ about in DC for a few days and managed to sniff out an unauthorised doctor who took care of a lot of underground injuries - knife stabs and bullet wounds, and didn't ask questions - who'd patched up a "weird fella, real quiet" and had received only a couple of coins and a broken gun in return for his efforts. Steve had put on a face like a kicked puppy, so Sam threw the man a couple of dollar bills and dragged Steve out of there as fast as he could.

Then they'd gone to the UK. They'd had no real leads, except for the "doctor's" mutterings, but Steve was confident (Sam didn't believe him) and thus they faffed about in the UK for a week and a half (same argument as before). Sam made them both go see Big Ben before they left, and took a picture to prove it.

They were now sitting in the Eurostar. Steve was looking through the file Natasha had given him. There was a mention of a French town in there, and a couple of French names, so. As good a place as any to turn upside down.

"Time for some real leads, huh?" Sam asked. He was lounging in a very uncomfortable looking position, legs up on top of their duffel bags, back against the window, and a cap drawn down over his face. There'd been snoring coming out from under the cap just a minute ago, but the falcon had seemingly awoken. 

"The other leads were real too," Steve said. 

"About as real as my tits," Sam said.

"We are going to speak to this man," Steve said, tapping a finger against the dossier. He looked at his watch. "We'll be in Paris in ten minutes. We need to change trains."

"When's our next train?" 

"Half an hour from now?"

"You tellin' me we went all the way over here and we'll be in fucking Paris in ten minutes and we're not seeing the fuckin' Eiffel fuckin' Tower?"

Steve looked up. "We're on a mission."

Sam stared at him. Steve stared back. This staring contest lasted for all of two minutes and twenty six seconds.

"There doesn't happen to be a lead in the Eiffel Tower?"

"No." Steve sighed. "I'm sorry."

"Forget it, man. Where are we going?"

"Montpellier." 

It took six hours and then some to reach Montpellier. They tracked down a hostel, got a room, and went to bed. Or rather, Sam went to sleep and Steve sat on his bed going over everything in the folder for the fiftieth time. 

Sam threw a pillow at him, which was stupid, because now Sam didn't have a pillow, so he got up to retrieve it. He threw it at Steve's head again.

"Keep doing that and you're not going to sleep at all," Steve said and directed his flashlight at Sam. (The lightbulb in the single lamp in the room was broken.)

"Go the fuck to sleep, man." Sam picked up the pillow and threw it back at Steve. 

Steve shoved the pillow behind his back, where Sam couldn't get it.

"Suit yourself," Sam muttered and turned his back on Steve. A minute passed, then: "Do you really think tracing his past will turn him up?"

"It's all I got," Steve answered.

The trouble didn't start in Montpellier. Not even close. They went to the address of one Gilbert Signoret, which turned out to be a modest looking villa, possibly middle class though Sam had no cultural context for judgment and Steve didn't care. There was no Gilbert Signoret at the address, but there was a very friendly old lady who introduced herself as Mimi, and whose French was far too advanced for Steve to follow. After a while it became clear that the old lady was not a front, made wonderful biscuits, and there hadn't been a Gilbert Signoret at the address for the past ten years.

The trouble also did not start in Ospel, a small and semi-charming village in the Netherlands. They managed to stumble into Ospel during the one weekend in the year where the slumbering village woke up, thousands of visitors, well, _visited_ , and the teenagers stopped vandalising public property: the Moulin Blues Festival. The number of inhabitants in Ospel doubled over the weekend, so of course Sam and Steve found themselves without a place to sleep except for the cold, hard ground under a couple of trees.

"It's like being back in Europe," Steve said.

"You are in Europe," Sam said. "Or do you mean to tell me the past few weeks have been an illusion?"

"I meant like in the war," Steve said. "Wasn't often we had the luxury of, well, anything."

They woke up in the morning shivering with cold and soaked to the bone through their military grade sleeping bags because dew was very aggressive in Europe. 

Also, Bucky wasn't in Ospel, and nor was Angélique Poepjes. Her supposed residence had been cleaned out some time before their arrival and was completely empty. One hundred per cent. Even the rubbish bin under the sink was empty. Steve also didn't sniff out any secret rooms or basement labs or talking computers, so that was a complete dead end.

The trouble kinda started in Karlsruhe in Germany, but it wasn't the kind of trouble they were looking for. Emile Danis was long dead, and the not-so-secret-now-that-Steve-knew-about-it HYDRA base had already been smoked out by a faction of SHIELD that had miraculously not been corrupt, and there was nothing there. It was a dead end, more or less, but there was trouble, and the trouble was that Steve and Sam started sleeping together.

It was inevitable, really, what with how half the time they were given a room with a double bed and the other half two singles - not that they were the kind of people to blame hostel keepers for their sexcapades or unwanted pregnancies (Natasha had shown him that review online and they'd laughed themselves silly), but like. It was easy. It was so easy that they laughed about it afterwards and Steve said "no homo" (Clint, not Natasha) and Sam whacked him and said "not cool bro, that was totally homo" and then they did it again.

It was the kind of uninvited trouble that they were very much not looking for that kinda just snuck on them and didn't leave. Like an uninvited guest who drinks all your coffee and eats your pizza leftovers. (Clint. Always Clint.) Only, it was a lot less rude, on account of not being Clint.

And it was comforting. It was good. Steve became a lot more pleasant company ("Dude, if only I'd known you'd mellow up I'd have tapped that a lot faster," Sam said and Steve elbowed him).

From Karslruhe they went to Ærøskøbing, of all places, an unpronounceable village in the southern parts of Denmark, very picturesque, very hard to get to (it involved ferries and lots of waiting and Sam giving Steve incredulous looks all the way), and completely devoid of anything HYDRA, or remotely Winter Soldier-ish. What they found were lots of cobbled streets and hollyhocks, and after half a day Sam snatched Steve's folder and leafed through it and then informed him there was not a single mention of Ærøskøbing in there.

This was true; as it turned out, Steve was horribly terribly _atrociously_ bad at deciphering other people's handwriting.

"This doesn't even come _close_ to Ærøskøbing, what the hell, Steve. _What the hell_."

"I swear that's an Æ just look at it," Steve insisted. He made appropriate flailing gestures to go with the situation.

"It doesn't even say -købing!" Sam peered at the chicken scrawl. "It's - I don't even know, man. But I don't think we're meant to be _here_. He gestured at the surrounding houses and hollyhocks and the sunshine. There was even a litter of kittens playing near a rain pipe, there was a hollow just under it filled with water. "Does this look like the secret lair of an evil underground organisation?"

"Looks decei-"

"Don't give me that crap," Sam said. "Let's just accept defeat and move on."

Steve gave him a sheepish look.

"Don't tell me," Sam said. "Last ferry for the day has left?"

They stayed that night under a tarp at the nearest campsite, not having forgotten the ferocity of European dew. 

Berlin was next on the list and there was no trouble there either. They found another smoked out HYDRA base and a single SHIELD agent looking at it smoulder, so Sam coerced Steve to join him in the shower for the sake of cleanliness and sex. To be fair they both stank, not having seen a shower since before Ærøskøbing, and Berlin was not the kind of place Sam felt deserved their hobo. Also, sex. 

They found one person on their list in Chelm, Poland. He was in an old people's home and had no memory of what he'd had for breakfast that morning. He also had no memory of the Winter Soldier, but he could recall the war with a clarity that put Steve to shame.

"I'm going to have to say it," Sam said, as they left the man behind.

"Please don't," Steve said.

"All the people we are looking for are dead or too old to be of any use," Sam pointed out.

"There's a couple of places left," Steve insisted. "Someone's got to have done, I don't know, maintenance. Younger people."

Sam gave him a look. "Did you consider that maybe you killed them all back in DC?"

"No that'd be silly," Steve said. "We found their lair, remember. All empty. They escaped."

"And you're looking for them in Chelm. Ospel. _Ærøskøbing_."

"I'm looking for Bucky," Steve pointed out. "I'm... He has to be here somewhere."

"You're right," Sam said. "He is. He's on this planet somewhere."

Steve withdrew his sex privileges for one night.

They went to Vienna and it was so uneventful that Vienna was barely even a footnote in Steve's logbook. 

"Dude, you keep a logbook?" Sam said, cleverly not mentioning that he'd never seen it before on this trip as he was still smarting from his no-sex-for-24-hours sting.

"I'm a captain," Steve said.

Sam very cleverly also refrained from mentioning that wasn't quite how it worked, either.

There was, unsurprisingly, absolutely no trouble in Kiev. Steve had been holding his breath for Kiev, because he was a sad hobo pseudo-hipster with a beard at this point (no comments about Sam's appearance) and was starting to get really angsty about Bucky. ("What if he doesn't want to get found?" He'd ask and Sam wouldn't know what to say in return. He usually got Steve to talk about what he'd been like before, all the shit they'd been through together, even how the man liked his coffee. Sam wasn't a jealous man, but he knew perfectly well that he would never be an adequate replacement for Bucky Barnes.)

Steve seemed to have given up on Villages of Europe: The Scenic Tour, after a short stint in Gdów, a tiny village a fair distance from Kraków which yielded nothing and was, in fact, quite perplexing as it somehow seemed to be populated by a lot of upscale hotels and holiday resorts. So they went to Prague and had coffee with Nick Fury in a coffee house in the Old Town.

"So, those smoking HYDRA bases?" Steve said and blew on his coffee.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Fury said, but looked far too satisfied for his own good. "You kids gettin' anywhere?"

"We're gettin'," Sam said, with an absolutely filthy grin on his face. Steve didn't even bother elbowing him. "But not what we're after."

"I might have a lead." Fury plucked a little envelope out of his inside pocket and handed to Steve. "Can't guarantee it."

"Thanks." Steve pocketed it without looking at it. "How are you doing? Not being you."

"I do," Fury answered. 

They finished their coffee, Fury left and Sam and Steve went to their hostel to bang. They got kicked out of the hostel.

The night train to St. Petersburg was unforgiving and smelly, and also uneventful and completely devoid of trouble. They whiled away the time with cards and 'Never have I ever'.

Sam learned that Steve once spent a night with twin girls comparing apple pie recipes and Bucky passed out on the floor next to them. Sam found this so hilarious he fell off the seat and woke up an interrailer from Belgium two seats over. Steve learned that Sam can play the guitar and used to be in a band in high school so he could pick up girls. This didn't work according to plan because his best friend at the time had spread rumours of him having chlamydia because Sam was better at the guitar than the friend.

Steve flattened Sam in poker five times in a row. Sam taught Steve a card game he'd learned on tour, and crushed him three times, until Steve got the hang of it and turned the tables. Sam fell asleep curled up against his duffel bag and Steve looked out the window at the darkness and the branches of trees whipping past.

St. Petersburg had a shower and lumpy beds, but not a single trace of the Winter Soldier. They did find an old hideout, thirty years empty and recently inhabited by homeless dogs. They briefly discussed the merits of Moscow over Vyborg; it was a toss up as they'd hit another dead end and the flip of a coin made the decision for them. Vyborg it was, they got on another train, got off the train, sniffed out the city, found nothing.

Their funds were running low and they'd been in Europe and Russia for about a month. Steve's beard was reaching scary proportions and Sam wanted to attack it with a razor, because surely Captain America couldn't look like a homeless frat boy, could he? 

They stayed in Vyborg for three days, squatting in an abandoned HYDRA base, fifty years empty and yet had running water. Steve looked at the few Manila folders that had been left behind, half fallen apart and dusty, while Sam cooked beans over a fire made from broken furniture.

"I think we should go to Finland," Steve said, throwing down a folder in Sam's lap. "There are mentions of a place in Finland in this file."

"Dude, I hate to say it," Sam started, picking up the file. It was in Russian. Since when did Steve know Russian? "But I think you're grasping at straws here."

"We could at least try it," Steve said. "Then maybe Moscow after."

"Where to in Finland?"

"Place called Lappeenranta."

"Another fucking village?"

Steve shrugged.

"Are you losing your will to live?" Sam asked. "Because if you are, I am going to kick your ass."

"No," Steve answered, sitting down. He sighed. "Hope, maybe. I don't think he wants to be found."

"Look," Sam said, scooting over. "We'll try this lap rant place, okay? And if he's there, then he's there. If he's not, I think it's time we go home. Figure out what the fuck to do with our lives."

Steve didn't say anything. "I'm sorry," he said at last. "For dragging you into this."

"Come on! You didn't force me to do anything. I made my choice, you hear?"

"But you didn't ask for this," Steve said and gestured around them at the dusty bunker and the beans boiling over the fire. He gestured between them.

"Yeah well, dickhead, in case you didn't notice I could've ditched you back in fuckin' Paris and gone to see the damn Eiffel Tower all by myself, but I stuck with you because you're a fucking idiot and you're my friend." Sam glared.

"Just a friend, then?" Steve looked at him.

"With very special, very sexy benefits," Sam added. "No romo. Sorry man."

Steve cracked up laughing.

They went to Finland the day after, or rather, they put themselves on a ferry, sat on it for twelve hours and then they were in Finland. They still smelled of smoke and burnt beans, and maybe a little of sex, but Steve was oddly cheerful and Sam had beaten him at poker for the first time in five weeks.

Lappeenranta was peaceful and also didn't look like the secret lair of an ex-soviet assassin. 

Sam found them a cheap enough hostel and they did the same old song and dance routine in the shower, except this time when they emerged from it a hobo with beard game stronger than Steve's was sitting on their bed.

The metal arm gave him away.

"Jesus you two are hard to find," the hobo said. "Who the fuck are you running from?"

"Er -" Steve adjusted his towel. " _What_?"

"Dude," Sam said. "What?"

"I've been looking for you all over goddamn Europe," Bucky said, gesturing with his very much flesh-and-blood arm. "Who are you running from? HYDRA?" He frowned. "Me?"

"We weren't..." Steve shook his head. "We were looking for _you_."

Bucky stared at them. "In Europe?"

"Uh, yes?"

Bucky blinked. "I wasn't in Europe."

Steve drew up short. "What?"

"Dude," Sam said.

"I was in New York," Bucky said. "Then I found out you'd gone to Europe, so I followed you." He paused. "If you aren't running, then why have you gone to such great pains to stay low? Using trains instead of planes and staying in hostels that don't ask for ID?"

Sam and Steve looked at each other. They shrugged rather helplessly.

"So, how did you, uh, find us?"

"I know people who know people," Bucky answered evasively. "When you turned up at the Russian borders it was much easier to track you down. What the hell were you doing in Denmark?"

"That's all him," Sam said and pointed at Steve. 

"That's not important," Steve said. "Can we, uhm, focus?" Steve fidgeted with the edge of his towel. "Are you seriously telling me that you were stateside this whole time and we were chasing a ghost?"

"Yes." Bucky shook his head. "You should've looked in Brooklyn first."

"Dude," Sam said, now grinning. "I can't believe this. I can't believe my new best friend is this much of a knob. Oh man."

Steve looked between Bucky, fully clothed, and Sam, still wearing a towel. "I'm going to put some clothes on." He whirled on Bucky. "And you are staying _right there_!"

Bucky held up his hands. "Not going anywhere!"

"Dude," Sam said. "You're all normal and shit."

"Fuck you," Bucky said.

"Play nice!" Steve yelled from inside the bathroom.


End file.
